The biggest enemy of scientific progress, the experts said, are so-called "stealth" patents -- those which are filed on genes that researchers have located, but haven't discovered their function. They sit on the patent, sometimes for long periods of time, during which no research is done.

As long as these patents exist, they can significantly undermine scientific innovation and the creation of useful products, the experts agreed. Meanwhile, the new guidelines, while useful, leave some sticky problems.

Dr. Robert Cook-Deegan -- director of the National Cancer Policy Board and the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine and Commission on Life Sciences -- said his biggest worry is what the gene patent frenzy is doing to academia. If academics are squeezed out of a patent-laden field, industry will be cutting off its most important lifeline.

Academia and government funded the most genetic research in 2000, contributing about $1.3 billion. Established pharmaceutical companies ponied up about $900 million in 2000, and genomics firms tallied in at about $846 million in 1999, according to the latest figures available. Deegan expects the number will be larger for 2000.

Money, in addition to the know-how and ingenuity of the academic and government sector, creates a unique situation in genetic research. Companies report that about one-quarter of their product streams would have been fully blocked if not for academia, and another one-quarter would have been seriously delayed.

With this dynamic in place, Deegan cautioned the industry against too much secrecy in the scientific system. He called it "sludge."

This sludge is changing academic norms in a negative way, said Deegan, who helped to draft the patent office's new guidelines. Technology licensing is becoming a profit center, and universities are seeking more and more patents.

If researchers in academia feel an increasing need to harbor their own information in an widening ocean of secrecy, they could drown in the expensive and paperwork-intensive patent process, slowing discovery.

"Don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg," Deegan said.

Deegan emphasized how complicated gene patenting is by showing the audience a list of the organizations with the most gene-related patents.

First is the government, followed by the University of California, then genomics company Incyte (INCY), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and biotech giant Genentech (DNA).

The entire scope of gene-related industry is covered just in the top five: government, academia, genomics, big pharma and biotech. With so many cooks making the soup, the recipe can't be easy.

"If anybody tells me right now they have the perfect solution to this, I think they're nuts," said David Galas, chief academic officer of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences.